The message of the seasons: learning from life experiences

Fall has arrived in all its glory. On the east coast, daily forecasts are made regarding the current state of the foliage, hoping to attract "peepers" from other parts of the country to witness the colorful deciduous forests, laced with conifers, in places like Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire. As we ended our trip to Maine a couple weeks ago, the trees were considered at 75 percent of peak. Tourists will doubtlessly be arriving this weekend en masse.

I have learned to appreciate our own version of fall on the west coast. We have a native sugar maple in our yard, which looks just as beautiful as anything we saw in Maine, in my opinion. However, it is the redwood duff that has come to represent fall for me in Humboldt County. Since duff also happens to be my last name, I've learned that the Scottish root for the term is "turf." How many times have I heard, "Get off your duff," accompanied by laughter from a person who thought they had come up with something original and really funny? Get off your duff is better phrased as "get off the duff," hence the golfing expression "duffer," meaning someone who can't lift the ball off the ground even after repeated swings.

Anyway, we who live in redwood country are familiar with the avalanche of redwood duff that marks the turn of the seasons from fall to winter in this geography. There is something humbling about the season of fall. We know that the days will become shorter, colder and, at least in this part of the world, rainier. Learning humility is considered a good thing by most world religions. Like the word "duff," the root of the word "humility" is humus or earth. One way to understand its meaning is to be "grounded." Sooner or later life has a way of teaching us something about humility, regardless of how entitled or protected we feel in general.

Many faith traditions teach that life is not always fair, people can be cruel, and expectations are often dashed when they come up against hard reality. It is considered better to be surprised by the good things that happen, rather than continually disturbed by the bad. Most traditions call these experiences of good things "blessings. " A friend recently referred to them as grace moments. It is not as though we deserve them; they seem to happen in a random fashion. The point is to appreciate them when they occur, and this can only happen from a perspective of humility.

Giving thanks is one way of expressing humility. In my experience, life can be one humbling experience after another, interrupted now and then by blessings or grace moments. We are all grounded, ultimately, in the earth, or in stardust as the astrophysicists describe it. No one of us is better or worse than anyone else, from that perspective. It is a blessing simply to be alive and aware of the gift of a new day. Sometimes, that's all we need.

I have been inspired recently by the example of Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan. She isn't afraid to speak her mind, even in the face of the Taliban. She dares to argue that girls deserve education just as much as boys. She understands that education empowers people and that some elements of the religious world -- and I do not single out Islam in this respect, because all religions share the blame -- have tried to keep women from becoming fully empowered. If sin is making a conscious choice to do something wrong, then keeping women from enjoying the full rights and privileges that every human being deserves, including education, is a sin.

I doubt few understand humility as well as Malala does. Regardless of her brief 16 years, she speaks truth. Let's hope that her kind of wisdom, born from humility, will set an example for many young and old people who are searching for ways to make this life a blessing rather than a curse for those humbled in ways that are hard to endure. Fall is a season to give thanks for the blessings and the grace moments that come our way without even having to ask for them, and for people like Malala who show us how to be fully grounded human beings.

The Rev. Eric Duff is an Episcopal priest and licensed clinical social worker who writes this column for the Times-Standard. He has a psychotherapy practice in McKinleyville. He can be reached at eric6017@suddenlink.net.